


with you, with me

by Ink_On_Parchment



Series: fictober 19 [4]
Category: The Adventure Zone (Podcast)
Genre: Angst, Balance Spoilers, F/M, Fluff, Memory Loss, Nightmares, People In Love, Recovery
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-08
Updated: 2019-10-08
Packaged: 2020-11-27 06:31:11
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,094
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20943890
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ink_On_Parchment/pseuds/Ink_On_Parchment
Summary: Barry has his family back. Now, if only Barry could remember that.





	with you, with me

**Author's Note:**

> For the fictober prompt: "I'm with you, you know that."

_He looks around, and he swears he’s seen this place before. There’s something familiar about the layout, about the vendors that are set up in the main plaza. His feet take him to a pub that he can’t remember the name of, but he finds a table and it feels like his. He sees a brightly dressed drow exchange pleasantries with a tall orc woman, and he doesn’t know why panic sweeps through him at the sight of their metal bracers, but it does. He’s up and moving before they have a chance to get a good look at him and then he’s gone. _

_He’s caught out by bandits three days later, dead before he has a chance to fight back, and then power surges through him like a wave. _

_Lup. The Hunger. Lucretia. Taako. MagnusMerleDavenportLupLupLup._

_But Lup is gone and he cannot find the others and he is the only one left that has the power and the will to find her. _

_Then he is back in a body with explicit instructions to get to Phandalin. He’s back in a tavern that feels too familiar, at a table that feels like his. He doesn’t have a clue who he’s meeting. He doesn’t really know who he is. There’s something he’s got to stop, someone he’s got to find, he feels it like he feels the emptiness in his bones, but he has no idea what or who it is. He meets three gentlemen, if they can be called that, and more progress is made than what feels like has been made in months. They go off, and he goes off to figure out if anyone has any details about his mystery person._

_Then the dwarf comes back, blazing with magic. He sees Taako in the distance holding an umbrella and he has just enough time for utter despair to wash through him before static hits his brain so hard he blacks out. _

_And then he’s dead again, floating above Phandalin. _

_He was so, so close. His family was right there, and he didn’t have the memories to saying anything. _

_Taako has the umbrastaff. Taako found Lup. But. But. Where? LupLupLupLup_

“Babe. Hey babe. Wake up for me, hon.”

His heart stutters at the voice he’d only heard in dreams for a long time. There’s a hand on his shoulder and he fights down the impulse of _threat, run, fight, _because he has to know if it’s her. He opens his eyes, squinting in the darkness, and meets blue-green eyes he’s been in love with for sixty years. There’s a strangled whine in the air that he is vaguely aware that he is making, and he reaches up to interlock their fingers. Her hands are strong, fire-scarred and chipped paint and he loves them because even like this she can steady him with just a touch.

“Hey,” he says, and it comes out as barely more than a croak.

It’s quiet for a second, and then he feels her other hand on his cheek. Her fingers come away wet and it is only then that he realizes that he is crying, tears coming in a steady stream that he has no idea how to stop.

“You wanna tell me what’s wrong?” her voice is a quiet balm in the darkness, and a part of him doesn’t want her to ever stop talking. If he can hear her it means that she’s here, it means that he’s found her, that he’s not alone.

He nods, pressing the heel of one hand against one of his eyes in a futile attempt to stop crying. They’ve haven’t tried to hide nightmares from one another for decades, and even after that they realized that bottling up emotions wasn’t the best idea as a lich. He has no idea what would happen now that they’re reapers.

“Was it the Hunger?” she asked, and he can’t quite hold back a smile. She’s never been very patient.

She’s blurry around the edges when he opens his eyes, and he realizes she’s moved back a little bit to give him room to breathe. Without his glasses the space is too much for him to be able to bring her face into focus, so he holds his hand out and summons the glasses to him. This isn’t a conversation he wants to have if he can’t see her.

“No. No, it wasn’t the Hunger. Not, not really this time.” It’s hard to get the words out. Out of everything, it feels ridiculous for this to be what has brought him to tears. He died countless times, and he knows that he would have done it again. He watched his family die, his homeworld be destroyed. But, now that he looks back on it, the ten years he spent cycling through bodies in search of them feels like it took more of a toll on him than the entire century did.

Losing them all hurt more. That’s for sure.

He doesn’t continue immediately, but he feels Lup’s fingers interlock with his and feels stronger for it.

“It was after. After you went after the gauntlet. After Lucretia enacted her plan. I was so close so many times, you know. I never gave up looking for you. It took me _years, _but I was in Phandalin. I met Taako, and Merle and Magnus. But I didn’t have a single memory. I was so close. They were _right there. _And then I died. And they didn’t know who Barry Bluejeans was, so I couldn’t just come back, you know? I was by myself that whole time, and she had the nerve to make me the enemy. We spent a hundred years together, Lup. How does that—?”

The hand that is holding his is squeezing hard enough to hurt, but her other hand comes up and gently brushes more tears off his cheeks. “I don’t have the answers you’re looking for, hon. But what I do know is this. I’m with you, you know that. I’m with you now, and I’ll be with you until the very end. This job we’ve gotten ourselves into has made sure of that. Our family knows you now. We all have our memories, and we are all safe. We’re all right here. We did it. We saved the world. And no matter what anyone believed, no one in any universe thinks you’re anything but a hero now.”

He smiles, pulls her closer. “You’re my hero, you know.”

“Sap.” She says, but she’s grinning in the darkness. “Love you.”

“Always and forever.”

**Author's Note:**

> I have so many emotions about Barry Bluejeans, and just as many emotions about Lup. I love them so so much.
> 
> Thanks for reading!


End file.
